Showing posts with label arm core. Show all posts
Perhaps this will succeed where Windows RT failed.
Microsoft dipped its toe in the ARM waters with Windows RT but it ultimately proved a failure, primarily because of the lack of applications. That doesn't mean the company is going to give up on the dominant mobile market processor, however.
At the WinHEC show in China last week, Microsoft announced it has finally created a native version of Windows 10 running on Qualcomm Snapdragon processors with full x86 compatibility. This isn't Windows RT, it's full Windows 10, but you’ll be able to run Win32 apps and Windows Universal Apps.
The initial version of ARM Windows 10 only supports 32-bit apps, but that's not a big deal since most mobile devices have 4GB of memory or less anyway. And it should be noted this is Windows 10 on Snapdragon, not Windows 10 on ARM. Sure, Qualcomm's processors are fairly ubiquitous but they aren't everywhere. You won't be running Windows 10 on an iPad any time soon.
This enables Microsoft to get down into the lower-cost mobile market. The Surface tablets and notebooks are nice but they aren't cheap. That's partly due to being essentially x86 PCs. An ARM-based tablet has an overall lower cost of materials and lower price, so it gets Windows into places Microsoft currently isn't playing with the Surface line.
"For the first time ever, our customers will be able to experience the Windows they know with all the apps, peripherals, and enterprise capabilities they require, on a truly mobile, power efficient, always-connected cellular PC," said Windows chief Terry Myerson in a blog post announcing the breakthrough, along with other WinHEC news.
"With Windows 10 on cellular PCs, we will help everyone make the most of the air around them. We look forward to seeing these new devices with integrated cellular connectivity and the great experiences people love like touch, pen and Windows Hello, in market as early as next year," he added.
PCWorld (a sister publication of Computerworld) reports that the emulation will be built around a new, unreleased chip the Snapdragon 835 that's in production now and is due to ship in the first half of 2017, according to Qualcomm. The first Windows-on-ARM devices are expected by the second half of next year.
This will be a major challenge for Qualcomm. Emulation is always tricky business. Remember Transmeta? The difference here is Intel has basically given up on the mobile market. It bailed out of the tablet and smartphone business last year, basically handing it to ARM. So at least they don't have to deal with Intel on the hardware side.
But Qualcomm still faces a considerable challenge of ARM-to-x86 emulation. We don't know anything on the performance specs of the 835, only that it's a 10nm part.
Packet’s not-so-secret weapon: energy-sipping bare-metal servers using ARM processors.
A
little-known startup is making a big bet that it can parlay new ARM chips, and
backing from a Japanese investment giant, to make its presence felt among the
cloud computing giants.
The
company, Packet, on Tuesday is launching new rentable “bare metal” computing
services based on the ARM v8 chip architecture from its data centers in New
Jersey, Northern California, Amsterdam, and Tokyo. Customers can set up and
launch these resources within minutes, Packet said
The
move is unusual because ARM chips are not commonly found in the servers that
power corporate data centers or public cloud computer services, such as those
sold by Amazon AMZN -1.47% Web Services. They do, however, dominate the
smartphone market—scratch an Apple AAPL
-1.87% iPhone (God forbid) and you’ll
see an ARM chip. And many techies see ARM’s energy-efficient design as an
interesting option for servers going forward.
Bare
metal servers, unlike typical cloud-based servers, are not virtualized. That
means they can run certain jobs, like databases, faster than virtualized cloud
servers. IBM IBM -2.15% , Rackspace RAX 0.00%
and some other cloud companies already offer bare metal options for
rent.
New
York-based Packet, which disclosed $9.4 million in funding from Softbank in
September, aims to satisfy what it sees as a growing market for bare-metal
computing on demand. Softbank is a great ally for Packet, since it is buying
ARM Holdings for $32 billion. ARM Holdings is the U.K. company that controls
and licenses ARM processor designs to manufacturers.
Packet
CEO Zachary Smith acknowledges that this is a David and Goliath tale in many
ways. Intel chips dominate cloud computing services and equipment, as they do
inside corporate data centers. And Amazon Web Services and Microsoft MSFT -0.71%
Azure are the behemoths in the public cloud market; both organizations
sell (or rent) massive amounts of computing power to customers from their
Intel-dominated data centers.
Smith
has no problem stipulating that Intel owns “99 point whatever percent” of the
data center chip architecture, with a smattering of IBM-backed Power chips and
Oracle ORCL -1.42% SPARC chips here and there. Likewise, he
admits that Intel INTC 0.23% x86 chips work with everything, that Intel
fields a huge partner ecosystem of software, hardware and add-on providers, and
that it also owns the biggest-and-best fabrication facilities.
But,
he also insists that big changes over the past year are shifting the balance of
power. “There are a billion smartphones out there with ARM chips,” Smith noted.
As a result, there many manufacturers and plenty of ARM licensees working with
the technology. What that means is ARM now has an ecosystem all its own, which
is something Softbank and Packet hope to capitalize on.
Taking
on established cloud giants like Amazon Web Services is a long shot but there
are some critical nuances to consider.
First,
the market for rentable computer resources is growing fast enough now to float
many boats, including newcomers, provided they have funding and innovative
services that corporate developers and their IT strategy overlords want.
Second,
even cloud giants admit that new chip technologies will be critical as cloud
computing matures. Energy-efficient ARM chips that already power an estimated
95% of smartphones are bound to get a look, especially if their use can reduce
data center power requirements. Microsoft and Google also talk up x86
alternative chips for some uses. And Amazon last year bought Annapurna Labs, an
ARM chip licensee. Clearly, there is interest here.
Smith
contended that the widespread use of ARM chips in other scenarios is also
making it easier for cloud service providers (and others) to get early previews
of the technology and to develop offerings using it.
Cavium and Leading Partners Showcase ThunderX® ARM-based Server Platforms, QLogic® FastLinQ Ethernet Adapters and Fibre Channel HBAs for High Performance Computing at SC16
SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 15, 2016 --
Cavium, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM), a leading provider of semiconductor
products that enable intelligent processing for enterprise, data center,
cloud, wired and wireless networking, today announced the showcasing of
ThunderX based workload optimized server platforms and the QLogic
FastLinQ Ethernet Adapters and Fibre Channel HBAs for High Performance
Computing, Data Analytics, Scale Out Storage and Hyperscale Data Centers
at SC16 in the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. The show Expo dates are from Monday, November 14th to Thursday, November 17th.
ThunderX is Cavium's 64-bit ARMv8server processor family
for next generation high performance computing and hyperscale
workloads. With up to 48 high-performance custom cores, single and dual
socket capability, high memory bandwidth and capacity, and integrated
hardware accelerators, ThunderX enables best-in-class ARMv8 performance
per dollar and performance per watt. The ThunderX family includes
multiple SKUs that enable servers optimized for compute, storage,
network and security workloads in the cloud, and is widely supported by
industry-leading OS, hypervisor, software tool and application vendors.
ThunderX is also optimized for networking specific workloads such as
Network Functions Virtualization (NFV).
From
the heart of the data center, to the edge of the enterprise, and in the
cloud, QLogic® Fibre Channel and Ethernet adapters deliver an
uncompromising suite of features, performance and reliability with a
comprehensive suite of offerings that span 10GbE to 100GbE, and 8GFC to
32GFC (Gen6). QLogic Fibre Channel adapters are the gold standard in
SAN connectivity, trusted with running mission critical applications
across the world, and the QLogic FastLinQ Ethernet adapters are the most
flexible data networking solutions in the industry supporting FCoE,
iSCSI and RDMA transports. Together, these products make Cavium the
industry leader in high performance network connectivity solutions.
Show Highlights and Demonstrations
Cavium
executives will be available to discuss the broad range of ThunderX
based production platforms, which are ideal for critical workloads such
as highly parallel HPC applications, scale out storage with CEPH, Apache
Hadoop for Big Data Analytics, distributed data bases such as MySQL
& Cassandra, and Web Serving with NGINX. In addition to the ThunderX
based ODM and OEM platforms, Cavium's QLogic® FastLinQ Ethernet
Adapters and Fibre Channel HBAs will be on display at Cavium's booth
#4057 including:
- QLogic FastLinQ 10/25/40/50/100 Gb Ethernet Adapters
- QLogic Enhanced Gen5 and Gen6 Fibre Channel Adapter
- ThunderX System Partners including: Aewyn, E4, Gigabyte and Lenovo
Cavium
representatives will also be presenting more details on ThunderX at a
number of partner sponsored events during the week. These events
include the ARM HPC User Group as well as presentations at the Red Hat
and SUSE booths during the week at the Convention Center.
To schedule a meeting at SC16, please send an email to sales@cavium.com and enter SC16 Meeting Request in the subject line.
About Cavium
Cavium, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM), offers a broad portfolio of integrated, software compatible processors ranging in performance from 1Gbps to 100Gbp that enable secure, intelligent functionality in Enterprise, Data Center, Broadband, Mobile and Service Provider Equipment, highly programmable switches which scale to 3.2Tbps and Ethernet and Fibre Channel adapters up to 100Gbps. Cavium processors are supported by ecosystem partners that provide operating systems, tools and application support, hardware reference designs and other products. Cavium is headquartered in San Jose, CA with design centers in California, Massachusetts, India, Israel, China and Taiwan.
Cavium, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM), offers a broad portfolio of integrated, software compatible processors ranging in performance from 1Gbps to 100Gbp that enable secure, intelligent functionality in Enterprise, Data Center, Broadband, Mobile and Service Provider Equipment, highly programmable switches which scale to 3.2Tbps and Ethernet and Fibre Channel adapters up to 100Gbps. Cavium processors are supported by ecosystem partners that provide operating systems, tools and application support, hardware reference designs and other products. Cavium is headquartered in San Jose, CA with design centers in California, Massachusetts, India, Israel, China and Taiwan.
Media Contact
Angel Atondo
Sr. Marketing Communications Manager
Telephone: +1 408-943-7417
Email: angel.atondo@cavium.com
Angel Atondo
Sr. Marketing Communications Manager
Telephone: +1 408-943-7417
Email: angel.atondo@cavium.com
Suwanee, GA, October 24, 2016 - SoC Solutions is teaming with asicNorth as part of a complete development ecosystem for custom Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Joining SoC Solutions and asicNorth are Faraday Technology, Silicon Creations, and UMC. Each company offers valuable expertise in key areas such as system design, semiconductor design, and process technology areas. “By bringing together the unique expertise of the companies, asicNorth is able to offer IoT customers a streamlined platform for the creation of fully integrated devices for the IoT chip marketplace,” commented Mike Slattery, President of asicNorth.
“SoC Solutions is very excited to become a partner of the asicNorth ‘IoT Design EcoSystem’”, says Jim Bruister President/CEO. “Our more than 25 years of experience developing ARM based subsystems and software combined with asicNorth’s excellence in producing quality mixed signal designs is perfect for servicing the IoT market.” “asicNorth is pleased to offer this new capability to our customers” says Steve Stratz, VP. “By aligning ourselves with such strong players in the system design, semiconductor design and manufacturing community, we can collectively help our customers to bring better IoT device solutions to market.”
ARM TechCon 2016 Exhibiting Announcement
In an effort to showcase the newly created asicNorth’s “IoT Design EcoSystem”, Soc Solutions will be joining asicNorth at the ARM TechCon October 26th and October 27th, 2016 in Santa Clara, CA. ARM TechCon’s conference program is built to ignite understanding and innovation across the embedded systems industry, connecting thought leaders and professionals from around the country in order to push tomorrow’s industry today. It’s an unmatched opportunity to share ideas, gather insight, and discover inspiration for your next project. By offering three full days of technical tracks, demonstrations, and industry insight from broad and deep levels of industry-leading companies and innovative start-ups, ARM TechCon remains more than a tradeshow; it is a comprehensive learning environment for the entire embedded community, uniting the software and hardware communities. The conference also hosts a large commercial exhibition featuring over 100 companies.
Come visit us at booth #917.
About ASIC North:
ASIC North, INC was founded in January 2000 with one purpose in mind; to deliver the highest quality design services possible. In an industry that can be quite volatile at times, it is important to have a design partner that you can depend upon to deliver the skills you need when you need them. Today, asicNorth is enabling high-tech industry leaders and startups alike with a combination of design services in digital, analog, mixed-signal, and RF design. These capabilities, along with our focus on IP Design, Circuit Characterization; Supply Chain Management; and Turnkey Products allow us to support the needs of our clients at any point in the IC product development cycle. asicNorth is “Bringing Analog / Mixed-Signal to ASIC Design”. To learn more about asicNorth, visit us at www.asicNorth.com.
“SoC Solutions is very excited to become a partner of the asicNorth ‘IoT Design EcoSystem’”, says Jim Bruister President/CEO. “Our more than 25 years of experience developing ARM based subsystems and software combined with asicNorth’s excellence in producing quality mixed signal designs is perfect for servicing the IoT market.” “asicNorth is pleased to offer this new capability to our customers” says Steve Stratz, VP. “By aligning ourselves with such strong players in the system design, semiconductor design and manufacturing community, we can collectively help our customers to bring better IoT device solutions to market.”
ARM TechCon 2016 Exhibiting Announcement
In an effort to showcase the newly created asicNorth’s “IoT Design EcoSystem”, Soc Solutions will be joining asicNorth at the ARM TechCon October 26th and October 27th, 2016 in Santa Clara, CA. ARM TechCon’s conference program is built to ignite understanding and innovation across the embedded systems industry, connecting thought leaders and professionals from around the country in order to push tomorrow’s industry today. It’s an unmatched opportunity to share ideas, gather insight, and discover inspiration for your next project. By offering three full days of technical tracks, demonstrations, and industry insight from broad and deep levels of industry-leading companies and innovative start-ups, ARM TechCon remains more than a tradeshow; it is a comprehensive learning environment for the entire embedded community, uniting the software and hardware communities. The conference also hosts a large commercial exhibition featuring over 100 companies.
Come visit us at booth #917.
About ASIC North:
ASIC North, INC was founded in January 2000 with one purpose in mind; to deliver the highest quality design services possible. In an industry that can be quite volatile at times, it is important to have a design partner that you can depend upon to deliver the skills you need when you need them. Today, asicNorth is enabling high-tech industry leaders and startups alike with a combination of design services in digital, analog, mixed-signal, and RF design. These capabilities, along with our focus on IP Design, Circuit Characterization; Supply Chain Management; and Turnkey Products allow us to support the needs of our clients at any point in the IC product development cycle. asicNorth is “Bringing Analog / Mixed-Signal to ASIC Design”. To learn more about asicNorth, visit us at www.asicNorth.com.
